Tarocchi of Mantegna (Ferrara, c. 1465)
Suits
5
Cards
50
Author
Master of the E-Series
Place
Ferrara
Year
c. 1465
Pattern
Tarocchi of Mantegna
License
CC0
Source
Not a deck, and not a tarot. Fifty engravings printed in Ferrara or Venice around 1465 by an anonymous hand known as the Master of the E-Series, who had nothing to do with Mantegna. The sheets were never cut and never played with: they are a teaching ladder of the world, numbered 1 to 50 and divided into five tens — the conditions of man, Apollo and the Muses, the liberal arts, the cosmic principles and virtues, and the firmaments of the universe. There are no suits, no trumps and no court cards. No card back exists either; the one shown here is a modern reconstruction in the sheets' own paper colour. Images from the Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0.
